Politico Digs Dirt On Private Citizens While Employing Ex-Wife Beater

Politico has a reprehensible political tactic of doing oppo-research into the personal lives of everyday Americans on behalf of the Obama Administration. A few examples…

In 2008, after then-candidate Obama flubbed a question asked by a man Obama chose to approach, Politico’s Jonathan Martin sought to salvage Obama by changing the subject, publishing the poor guy’s tax lien. Joe the Plumber did absolutely nothing wrong. He was merely hanging out in his yard when Obama came up to him. Joe then asked The Man Who Would Be President a perfectly reasonable question. But…

Not surprisingly, Politico has only doubled down on this appalling behavior in 2012.

In May, Politico’s Maggie Haberman published the “serious” misdemeanor record of some poor guy who appeared in a Romney ad. That’s right, some everyday bloke not happy with Obama appears in a Romney ad and Politico not only does a criminal background check on him, they PUBLISH it.

That same month, Politico’s Abby Phillip went after some poor guy who made the mistake of donating money to Romney. Politico dug into his background and then wrote a feature piece exposing the fact that he had once been wanted for “criminal mischief.”

What Politico is doing here is obvious. The unofficial Web-branch of MSNBC wants to terrify private citizens into not doing anything that might harm Obama. This includes asking him a question when he approaches you, appearing in a Romney campaign ad, or donating money to Romney.

Now that some foundation has been laid, I’m going to get to the point…

Betsy Rothstein at FishbowlDC is reporting that Joe Williams, the Politico White House Correspondent who parted ways with the left-wing outlet last week, is guilty of assaulting his ex-wife, author Amy Alexander. Just a few months ago, in May, Williams pled guilty to second degree assault, was fined $200, and given six months probation.

Politico has not yet responded to Rothstein’s inquiries about whether or not they knew about the assault.

Because Politico has set a standard of looking into and reporting on the alleged misdeeds of private citizens who dare not support Obama, it’s fair to ask the following:

1. Does Politico investigate the backgrounds of their own employees, or only private citizens who dare not to support Obama?

2. Does Politico publish the results of background checks done on their own employees, or only the results of background checks of private citizens who dare not to support Obama?

3. What did Politico know and when did it know it?

If Politico is going to run around digging up and publishing dirt on private citizens, then we have a right to know if Politico tolerated a confessed ex-wife beater in its midst.

And if Politico didn’t know Williams pled guilty to assaulting his ex-wife, we have a right to know why Politico finds looking into the backgrounds of private citizens more important than doing standard background checks on its own White House Correspondents.